Couples intensive therapy is for the courageous. For those who admit they’ve done all they can do on their own. It’s a brave, bold step for both parties struggling in an endangered relationship.
The willingness to seek help is a core positive value, especially in such an intimate part of our lives. Therapists know only too well that those turning to intensive interventions are in a lot of pain — and this pain places the couple’s relationship at great risk.
These are couples who have tried their best to manage their shared lives, often following rules and ways of being that were imported from early childhood modeling, and now feel their relationship needs skilled intervention. Perhaps it’s been needed for a long time. Perhaps they’ve tried but have been unable to find the tools. Perhaps they previously believed seeking help was for the weak or the unstable.
In any case, these couples face the harsh reality that they’ve grown far apart. Now they turn to an unknown yet potentially trusted professional who can help save them. Or at least illuminate and address painful parts of their lives to avert more heartache. Perhaps even rekindling what was there and what was special at the start of their journey.
This decision can turn out well, if both partners are willing to open aspects of their lives that went unexamined before. The process may unearth feelings not experienced before.
They must trust that their therapist may lead them to a conclusion that however hard may bring some sense of ease and relief. Bringing clarity to either what went wrong and cannot be mended, or what alternatively might be the start of a new and expansive way of being together.
Either way couples intensive therapy is not for the fainthearted. In the early stages, it may prove quite painful as couples express feelings of anger, despair and helplessness. Truths must be shared, uncomfortable feelings tolerated and beliefs relinquished or negotiated for the good of the union. Something good will come of such a journey. Often an intensive such as this highlights areas too long avoided and feelings too long unspoken. Perhaps what appeared to be an inevitable breakup morphs into something unexpected and filled with possibility.
Intensive couples work gets to the root of painful repetitive themes in a relationship. Historical patterns of behavior and thoughts learned in childhood interfere with an individual’s developing sense of self and how he or she truly would like to be in a relationship.
Often unresolved traumas are part of the issue. Trauma freezes time, and may blur and confuse behaviors in the present, triggering defensive coping skills buried in the past. Historical injuries fester in what is already a painful situation.
Healthful confrontation
Confronting unhealthful coping patterns — recognizing trauma themes from the past and illuminating healthier patterns of communication and bonding skills — can bring couples back from the brink, often in simple ways when consistently reinforced by a commitment to improved ways of communicating and relating.
As new improved ways of relating are presented and incorporated, even the most unlikely relationships can find their way back on track: moving from a previously desperate place to a newly constructed relational home of infinite and intimate possibilities.
Wilshire/Valley Therapy Center offers a four-session Couples Intensive Therapy package. These make-or-break sessions help couples get back on the love track … or enable them to move on.